2 house guests

My Wolof team was hosting a couple for 2 weeks, Brian and Kara Cloud. They are residents of Oklahoma and are considering becoming missionaries one day. With this in mind, they wanted to see what life was like in Senegal and with our Wolof team. So they came and saw a lot of what we do in our ministry. After seeing what the life is like in the city (Dakar), they wanted to see what life was like in a village environment.

I agreed to host them for the 2 days. There were here for 48 hours from Monday-Wednesday. Knowing they were coming, I set up my schedule to host them and show them a bit of what I normally do during my time.

When they first came, we met in town and drove over to my house. It's not a long drive, but having never been here, Jeff and Risa (Wolof team members) wouldn't know how to get here. We got their bags in the house and chatted while I finished cooking lunch. Lunch was good-I did a chicken casserole, green beans, and homemade mac & cheese. After lunch we continued talking until Jeff and Risa had to go. They were staying in a town 2 hours north to do some scouting for houses.

I let Brian and Kara rest in the early afternoon before we went to the market. On the way to the market we met several of my friends and talked briefly to them. We observed some of the buying and selling in the market, and I explained a little of how the market works. It's a weekly market full of people who come from villages near by to buy and sell what they have. Some women will spend all week sewing in order to sell at the market. I always enjoy visiting the market to see how many people are coming and to see the action of buying and selling. There's not much else to do in Mekhe, so this is my window shopping!

After spending the evening in the market, we returned home to cook and eat supper. We had spaghetti, sauce, and a medley of peas, carrots, and potatoes. I should have done bread, too, wasn't thinking about bread. Then I chatted with my guard and introduced Kara and Brian to him. I continued chatting while they went to sleep.

Tuesday morning I had planned for the early morning to be free for quiet time while my maid cleaned the house. When she finished, we went out together to see the junior high school and my neighborhood. I had hoped to do some more visits with my neighbors, but Brian wasn't feeling well from the heat. So we did walk around and walked over to the school. The school headmaster had misunderstood me. I told him last week I had guests coming who wanted to see the school to compare it to schools in America. He was thinking they may be here to help out with finances, as they explained a lot of the difficulties the school was having in starting up. I know that it's tough having 80 kids in one classroom, that the desks and windows are broken, and the classrooms are in a bit of a mess. But they do have resources and could easily do something about the conditions. There are men who would come and clean the grounds for 5 dollars a day, which is half a child's registration cost. They could even ask the kids to do it, and I'm sure the kids would do it for free. I would have cleaned for 30 minutes with my friends when I was 12 if asked. We were asked to help and I wasn't expecting that. So I explained again that we were just curious to see the school and thanked him for his time. Classes should have started last week, but they're still trying to improve the school. The teachers are meeting and throwing ideas around, but I would be surprised if anything is done about the conditions.

We had lunch at my neighbor's house. They cooked rice, onion sauce, and fish for us. It was delicious, it's one of my favorite dishes here. After lunch I brought them back here to rest before going out to the village. At the village we were able to observe the slower paced life of Senegal. There the women were entertaining the kids and talking amongst each other. They also were gathering in the fields and brought home the millet that they had harvested for the animals to eat.

That evening we came back and talked for awhile with Elliott and my guard. Then I offered them sandwiches and leftovers for supper and we went to bed.

I did enjoy my time with Brian and Kara. We had good conversations and I learned a lot about what they hope to do in future ministry. I'm glad they are seeking and hope God will direct their lives from here on out. I'm especially grateful to all of you who prayed for our time together. My language seemed to grow this week tremendously. The food was good, and the visits went well. I enjoy hosting guests and will look forward to more opportuities in the future to host people here.

There's a mouse in the house!

Anyone who has seen a mouse in their house in the country knows that it's tough to get them out. Try catching one without a trap! These critters are fast! Well, I knew I had one in the house and that he was staying in my kitchen. The droppings were a sure sign, and try as I might, I couldn't find where he was hiding.

Well, yesterday he came out of hiding and ran under my feet. And I thought, yay, he's out of the kitchen. So I immediately closed the kitchen door so he couldn't go back in there. And then I set a trap to help catch him. He was behind my book case, so after getting the books out and got the bookcase closer to a corner, I had my broom in hand and was ready to get him in a box. Well, wouldn't you know he escaped from the box and ran into my bedroom!

Why I didn't close my bedroom door I don't know. Call me stupid, I should have! Now I'll get 20 comments from people saying, "nice story, Stupid!" hehe, all for love, I'm sure. So, at least I have him confined to one room now. The next trick is to get him in the open so I can catch or kill him. After about 2 hours and 100 sneezes (dust is rough on my allergies) I had him. I killed him and put him in my burn pile where the neighborhood tom cat enjoyed a nice late supper. Then I spent the evening spring cleaning my house from the mess I made. Well, at least I spent my Thursday doing 2 things that needed to be done. It's good to spring clean everything at least once a year. My house is so small and the dust is worse here than Fay, NC, so I should probably do this more often. But my kitchen is good as new, my living room is spotless again, and my bedroom is especially clean. In a way it felt like a wasted day, I had several things I wanted to do on Thursday. However, catching the mouse and spring cleaning were things that I needed to accomplish. Thank goodness that drama is over!

Language update

For those of you that have been faithful to pray for my language progression, thank you! Communicating here is a daily chore, and I'm realizing now that I may never be as adequate a speaker as I would like. I thought that given 3 extra months of Wolof study would make me a much better speaker. And I know it only helped, but I am ready for a change!
After class today, I'm down to only 5 classes to go. Seems hard to believe that the time is already approaching for me to really begin my ministry here.
So I figured I'd reflect a little on what I do want to do in my ministry.
-I am still going out and saying hi to my friends. I have a welder, carpenter, farmer, and seller of goods that I would like to visit at least once a week. That sounds like a lot, but those are relationships that I want to continue working on.
-I am in the process of greeting my neighbors. I could do this for a year and not meet all my neighbors in the block. But I have a goal to sit and talk with one new neighbor a week. I'll do that until I feel that I've met with most of them.
-I do prayer walks around my neighborhood. I pray for the people, the kids, and the lives that they are living. I also pray for openness to share with them and for them to be interested in hearing stories.
-I will be sharing 2 stories a month starting in November. I'm praying for a specific place to share these stories. Maybe near the school at my house would be a good place.
-It seems Elliott and I will begin going to villages to share initially with the people of the villages. We'll be doing some survey work to get into these villages-finding out their needs, praying on their behalf, and sharing stories.
-And I want to go to my school once a week to talk with an English class for an hour. School starts next week, so I will go and find out if this is possible.

Sounds like a lot? It is. I like to have plans and I'll see how much of this I can tackle. A lot of this I can do in the same days. I am looking forward to using my Wolof. Simply talking with people is going to make my language improve dramatically. And I believe the new responsibilities in work will give me energy to accomplish most of this. Encourage me to persevere, and ask me how I'm doing with these goals. I look forward to reporting how things are going.

An Ngente

I crashed a party last week! It was a baby naming ceremony (ngente). The family are neighbors of mine, and I greet them often. When I was walking through the neighborhood I noticed the tent. The kids started calling my name, asking me to come, so I did. I did want to know more about the baby naming ceremonies.
First I went and greeted everyone, and I specifically asked for the father to greet and congratulate him. Then I made myself comfy, sitting with some other guys my age under the tent. We talked for a good while. About 2 they brought what I thought was lunch, but instead was porridge (lah). It didn't look too appetizing, but was surprisingly delicious. It's millet served with milk for a sauce, and it was fairly thick. They'd put a lot of sugar in it, too.
After the porridge we had the first cup of tea and talked for a good while. I left at 4 before the main dish was served. But I had a good time talking with people. I was even able to share what I do with a few of the men, and one man seemed especially interested in hearing more. I'd like to go back and visit with him, to see how interested he may be in hearing stories.

Balance??

At Camp Caraway they have a ropes course off in the woods. This course helps build team togetherness, helping teenage boys learn to work together to accomplish goals. I remember one specific balancing bridge that was pretty difficult. The way this bridge works is this: it is basically a raft on air attached by a central axis point. I think the axis runs the length of the raft at the center. The goal is for all the boys on the team to stand on the raft at the same time without it touching the ground. It's a challenge because the boys have to distribute their weight evenly, moving forward or backwards to accomplish this. It's pretty complicated, but they enjoy the challenge.

That's sort of the trick that I'm learning here in Senegal. I tell you, some days this life is simply not for me. I love working with my hands and feet. I love giving of myself to others. And I love my family and friends. These are all things that I gave up in order to come here. Being here for close to a year now I'm starting to see how I miss those things by the feelings I go through on particular days. Some days I'm lonely. Some days I'm bored to death. And other days I'm not sure what I am. But having thought about why I struggle in balancing things here, this has been my conclusion. It is apparent to me that I have yet to learn how to give God these things in my life. I'm open to suggestions!

Typically what I find that works for me is that if I make myself go out and visit with people, the self worry and doubt go away. Maybe not completely, but the visits do help. Today I went to a carpenter friend and got to help build these bread boxes for 3 hours. That's a love of mine and I truly enjoyed doing that. I'll have to see if I can maybe help him a few days a week now and begin a close relationship with him.

But please continue to pray for me and balance. I do want to make a difference here, and I want this to be a successful 3 year journey for me. After 3 years who knows where God will have me. I want to be able to give him my all while I am here, and I want him to mold me to be the man he has in mind for me to be.

Job shadowed

Something pretty cool happened this week for me. I was asked by my business office if I could be job shadowed for a day by our short term mobilizer. Now initially I'm thinking, woah, they specifically want to job shadow me??? I remember in high school going to engineering firms asking to shadow their workers to see what they do during the day. So I'm thinking to myself, who am I that I have the experience to show someone what I do during the day-I'm still learning what I do during the day!
But we set up the time to meet together. I was going to entertain him, Alan Garnett, from 10-3. And I had nothing planned in stone! That's our life, we live by the seat of our pants. I had ideas, and prayed that God work work them out.
When we met, we drove over to my old neighborhood and visited with my apartment owner. He's a wonderful man and just showered me with compliments to my guest. I was humbled as I translated. I like him to, and told him how welcomed I always will feel there, that he is like a father to me, and though my home is in Mekhe, my heart lives here with his family. And along with this we had a good talk in catching up together. It had been a few months since I had seen him.
From there we walked my neighborhood together. I showed him some of the boutique stands that we buy things from, comparing them to all that we have to shop from in Mekhe. That was to give him an idea of what our town is like. We also talked a bit about the different strategies in rural ministry verses urban ministry. And I also mentioned that in the morning the visits are short because people are working. It's cooler and they're able to work more. But in the afternoon the visits are easier and longer. We can sit and talk over tea while lunch settles and people rest from the heat of the day. So typically I do most of my visits during the afternoons with my closest friends.
We also met one of my closer friends in the neighborhood, too. He heard us coming by and ran out to greet us. He speaks English as well as I speak Wolof. We talked a lot of his life and compared the life in Senegal to the life in America. He told my guest about his family, his house, and we shot the breeze about other things. These were 2 very good visits. I could not have asked for better visits.
After this I asked Alan if he would mind running errands with me. I could entertain him longer and these were things I had to get done while I was in Dakar. He was actually thankful and encouraging to me for asking. I appreciated him being flexible, but he reminded me that I have to wear many hats as a missionary. I'm not only a missionary, but a friend, a son, a cleaner, and a cook, and all of this is a part of our lives. So when he goes back to the states he can also share with future short term applicants this part of the life in Senegal as well as the sharing part of being a missionary.
So this day was a very productive day. I took the chance to specifically praise God for giving us such a great day together. I hope Alan enjoyed it as much as I did.