Life takes over

I know it's been over a month since my last post.  It has been busy but sometimes I'm just not motivated to post on the blog.  An overcap of the last 6 weeks...We're well into dry season now.  Along the roads the trees are dense with red dust.  For the last month we've been enjoying some cooler nights and mornings.  The afternoons are hot but bearable.  Hotter more unbearable weather is yet to come but we won't think about that yet.  We finished up our first semester in the dorm.  The following week we had our field conference.  It was shorter than usual but enjoyable.  The next week we celebrated Christmas and enjoyed some fun times with coworkers.  At the begining of this week we headed to the beach, about a 2 hour drive from here and spent 2 nights there.  It was so enjoyable and relaxing, not to mention the water was so warm.  It was a bit challenging with a newly walking one year old who enjoyed eating sand!  Oh yes, did I forget to mention that we celebrated Ian's 1st birthday during conference.  He is becoming more confident in his walking skills daily and is a lot of fun and a lot of work! 

We continue to rest in our Heavenly Father concerning the political situation of Guinea.  Yesterday on our way home from the beach we had a very enjoyable visit with some coworkers in a nearby village.  Their 2 kids are the same ages as our older 2.  It's fun to see the excitement of visiting friends and sharing joys and struggles together.

I guess this is kind of turning into a bit of a reflection which is appropriate since it's New Years Eve.  I'll try to post some pictures as well.

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Ian's 11 months old

I really cannot believe that 11 months have passed since Ian was born.  I'm including some recent pictures including a PA liscence plate that I saw on a road grader in our village here in Guinea, West Africa. 

A few other notes of interest...A chamelian that Aidan caught.  The day after he got it it shed it's skin.  There's the picture of the small animal.  It's a genet and we could have had 2 for pets, but we passed this time.

 

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More dorm weekend pictures

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A fun dorm weekend

Normally most of our dorm kids go home every weekend.  They all live within an hours drive away.  This past weekend we planned some fun activities and all of them stayed.  Friday night they had a youth group event which we're not involved with.  Saturday morning Pete and some of the guys got up early and went fishing, with no success.  Saturday afternoon we went for a bike ride to a river and had a picnic and swimming.  Saturday night we watched a movie with the projector and ate popcorn.  Sunday morning we made donuts and had some singing and praying time together.  It was a really fun weekend.  Enjoy the pictures.

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Peanuts

Have you ever seen peanuts like this before?  Our Guinean friends are harvesting their crops including peanuts right now.  Last week Pete got to go work in a friends field one morning and returned with this bunch of peanuts.  I'm so often reminded of how much physical work the Guineans do to make a living.  "By the sweat of your brow," comes to mind.  We westerners often take so much for granted.  Pray for the Guineans we know that they'll have an interest in the Gospel and that there will be a Spiritual harvest.

 

We're doing pretty well.  Last weekend we had a but going around, Pete had a bad migraine and fever and Faith had a 24 hours stomach bug.  Our kids and the dorm kids have had colds but overall we've been healthy.

 

Rainy season is winding down and we're getting some really nice rainy nights.  I'll certainly miss them when dry season is here.  It's hard to believe that Ian is 10 months old.  It doesn't seem possible.  He is a happy fun little guy.  He pushed up and stood briefly on his own today.  He's eating all sorts of things and loves to have fun.  The Guineans love him, especially because he's so chubby.  Last weekend some of our coworkers from a few hours away were in the guesthouse for the weekend.  Their kids are about the same ages as Aidan and Eli and they had a great time together.  Daniel helped Aidan make a bow and arrow.

 

Continue to pray to pray for Guinea as things are politically tense.

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fall break

Our internet was down for about a week so that's why we haven't posted anything.  It's been a crazy week.  We're nearing the end of rainy season and we get some pretty strong thunder/lightening storms.  Our freezer and fridge are both down due to being 'struck' or something.  Several others freezers were also affected.  Anyways...thankfully we can use an empty freezer at our mission guesthouse which is a short walk away.  We're just using our fridge as a cooler and freezing ice bottles to put in it once or twice a day.  Sure makes me realize how much I appreciate these convieniences.  We hope to get parts ordered an maybe DHL them here if we can.  Otherwise we'll be waiting a few months for them to arrive on a boat.  Thanks for your prayers concerning this.

 

Over a week ago we had a week of fall break.  Originally we planned a trip to Conakry, the capital city for some shopping and for Ian to get some shots.  Unfortunately we weren't able to go but spent a nice quiet week at home.  I always have a to do list that's way too long but we did get some things done as well as some relaxing.  The kids love to go to the, marigo, the river to swim.  We all went down one day and had fun.  I also took some time to go on a nice long bike ride with the kids which was good since only a few days later Eliannas tire popped.  We probably won't be able to get another tire/tube the right size.  For now she and Aidan are sharing a bike.  It's working out pretty well.

 

Here's a couple pictures from fall break.  There's also a picture of our dorm kids.  They did an oral report for history on different regions of Africa.  They are all dressed in outfits from those regions.  Also a picture of some fresh produce that we got when some friends went to Conakry.  Of course we can't forget the important stuff...Ian is 10 months old today.  He has a cold as do several in our family/dorm.  He's doing well though...he now claps his hands and can feed himself using the pincer grasp.  He said mama last week and is able to crawl very well and walk around furniture.  He's also getting adept as crawling/worming out under our couches from the living room barricade we sometimes put him in.   

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What a week

This has been a very sad week for the Landuma village here.  In the span of about a week there have been three deaths.  One woman was on her way out to the fields to work and was bit by a snake and died.  Another man was one of our guards who is a middle aged man, he passed away after being very sick for several months and just yesterday another woman died.  Pete was able to go to 2 of the funerals.  What can i say but hopelessness.  Today after the third death for the sacrifices at the funeral they were making bigger sacrifices, perhaps trying to appease the spirits so that no one else dies?  These people are Muslim outwardly but still hold to animism.  Pray for them, pray that they will see their need for a God of grace.  Pray for the missionaries and the few believers that are here.  Pray for us that we will free up those in language study and translation and that more will come to know of Him.

 

The pictures are of some boys that have been coming by lately to play and they always grab Ian.  When you have a baby, especially a white baby everyone wants to hold him.  A believer from another village that we work in came last week and brought us some of the first of his peanut crop, what an honor.  Lastly is our laundry lady who washes clothes for the dorm kids.  She has/is listening to Bible lessons on tape with some other women but we don't know where her heart is.  Pray with us for these people.

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testing

I'm trying something new with posterous, hoping to be able to update my blogger blog through them.

We'll see how it goes.  Here are some recent pictures of us grinding grain so we can have wheat flour and on a hike to fine a river to swim in.

Enjoy.

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Catching up again...

It always seems like I'm catching up on here. At times I have difficulty uploading pictures and generally don't do a good job at keeping the blog updated. I'm currently exploring some options that may help me to do that better.

We're settling into a fairly good routine in the dorm. Time is flying as we only have 2 weeks left until fall break. A quick review of our days goes like this... up to get breakfast ready for 7:15, school starts at 8am for Aidan and the dorm kids.
Aidan is attending the mission school here and is in 2nd grade.
Once the kids are off to school, we're getting laundry started. I do our own laundry but have a worker that washes clothes for the dorm kids. I do help her a bit. Usually laundry takes about an hour of my time daily on and off, because it all gets hung to dry after it's washed, which is a bit more complicated than just tossing it in the machine.
Three mornings a week I have a worker that comes to clean the dorm for us, she sweeps and mops all the rooms and cleans the bathrooms. She works from 8:30-12. She doesn't require any help from me. After laundry I'm usually onto lunch prep. We eat our main/big meal at lunch except for maybe once a week. Depending on the day it takes more or less. I try to bake bread, make granola and yogurt on the weekends to speed things up during the week. The school kids come home at 10:25 for a snack break so I have something ready for them. Then it's back to lunch prep. There are 10 of us for lunch daily. The kids finish school at 12:15 and it's usually 12:25 before we eat. Remember I do have Ian (who's 9 months old now and Elianna at home in the mornings). Pete is usually around but normally spends mornings working on some of his other responsibilities in his office, he oversees some workers and does some administrative stuff for the team of missionaries on the center. He helps out with laundry/lunch if needed. After lunch i feel like crashing and sometimes do. We have a chores system where everyone washes there own dishes after a meal but a team of kids is on dishes for the day, they dry and put away the dishes and wash any other meal dishes.

Usually the afternoons are not as crazy. Suppers don't require much prep. The kids go back to school at 1:15 until 2pm. At 2 they do work detail at school, sweeping and cleaning classrooms and sidewalks. Then they have free time or homework time. The younger kids have gym class Mon and Wed and the older kids have gym on Tue and Thur at 4:30-5:15. The reason for the later time is due to the heat. Pete or I usually try to go to gym class and participate if they need us. Supper is at 6pm. The jr. and sr. high kids have study hall from 7-8:30pm. We use this time to get our kids ready for bed and shower ourselves. From 8:45-9:15 or 9:30 is devos with the dormers. Then we hang out for a bit and are very tired by 10pm.
This is just a generic day but gives you an idea. Some days have other responsibilities or meetings etc.

Stay tuned for some pictures and hopefully I'll keep more up to date.

Ian before the mumps

Ian with the mumps.

Swollen face... not really impressed with life.

Superheroes.

Adama's (our house worker) baby

Trying to boost the car... we ended up push starting it.