Saturday was full of drama around our house.  David woke up and unlocked the doors to find our guard, Mr. B so sick he couldn’t walk. David took him to a colleague who used to be a nurse. She recommended he be taken to a local clinic for further examination. After trips to two clinics, David was able to find a doctor who knew what he was talking about. He then returned home to have lunch.

After lunch, David went to several pharmacies to fill Mr. B’s prescriptions. When he returned, I went out to open the gate for him and heard our two year old neighbor screaming. His grandma said he put his hand in a pot of boiling sauce. She wanted to know if I could help them. I had no clue about treating burns, so I ran inside and called our colleague. She came over right away and showed me how to treat a burn.

Now the toddler comes to our house every day at 4 o’clock for treatment. I am getting better at cleaning and dressing his wounds, but my hands still shake when I have to pull dead skin off his little hand. He should be totally healed within a week or two, and Mr. B will be well in a few weeks if he takes all his medicine, too.

I’m grateful for opportunities like these to reach out to those around us. It’s fulfilling to share the love of Christ in a tangible way. It also gives me hope that they’ll be more open to the Gospel when my language skills are sufficient to share it with them.

December 26 was David’s 30th birthday. We planned to get together with our colleagues at 8 p.m. for cake, cookies, prayer, and worship. At 7:30, after the buffet was set and the cookies were just coming out of the oven, a co-worker called to cancel. They had already baked a birthday cake for David when they remembered it was the first night of a country-wide 8 p.m. curfew. The wife quickly brought the cake to us, returning to her own home minutes before eight o’clock.

Just a few minutes after 8, gunfire could be heard all around our home. David quickly ran in from the office, bringing the computer with him. We turned on our two way radios so we could be in contact with our colleagues, turned off all our solar lights so we wouldn’t draw unnecessary attention to our home, locked all the outside doors and retreated to our bedroom on the back side of the house, the furthest room from the street. We prayed that a stray bullet wouldn’t hit us, our car, or our solar panels.

As we waited for the gunfire to stop, we watched a recently borrowed movie. About half way through, an extremely loud bang came from the office building that sits just beside our bedroom. “What was that?” I asked. David paused the movie, turned, with wide eyes and said, “I don’t know, and I’m not going to look.”

At about 11 p.m. the shooting stopped and David was able to go to the office to call his mom for a birthday chat. He opened the office door and saw that a stray bullet had come through the tin roof and landed beside his office chair.

It was later reported that soldiers were firing into the air to both to honor the late president, and to celebrate the fact that the new president is a military man.

We were thankful there was no serious damage to anyone or anything, and we were able to reschedule David’s party for the next day.

Today, we are living in a changed country.  This past Tuesday, the announcement came that the president of Guinea had died.  That very day, a military faction launched a coup in order to topple the government.  They took over the radio and television broadcasts announcing that the constitution was suspended and the current government dissolved.  For a day or so, the outcome seemed uncertain, with the government denying the success of the coup, but eventually, the government leaders were forced to concede defeat.  And so, today, Guinea is a changed country.  The old government is dead and we must wait to see what the future will reveal.

Personally, we feel safe for now.  Living seven hours from the capital has its advantages.  In our city so far, life goes on.  We haven’t gone out much, but when we have, we haven’t seen many signs of change.  Shops are open, people are buying and selling, people are going about their daily lives.  We appreciate your prayers during this uncertain time.

Last Tuesday at the invitation of ‘John’, our home owner, we visited Gar, a village we had never before been to. Gar sits just outside our city and is only a few minutes away by car.

When we entered John’s family compound, we were welcomed by all and immediately given a platter of freshly roasted goat and sheep. I always pray that God will do two things when I find myself in situations like that: 1. That God will help me to swallow the food I eat, and not throw it back up and 2. That I won’t get Montezuma’s revenge from eating raw and undercooked foods. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, we finished formatting the 2009 Scripture Calendars and sent them to the printer in Conakry.  We expect them to be finished soon and ready for distribution.  This year we are printing 4755 total calendars.  One calendar is in the Susu language, another in Maninka, another in Pular, and the last includes both French and English.  These calendars will be used by over nineteen missions and/or missionary families throughout Guinea as a means of sharing the Gospel.  If each calendar touches ten lives, which is certainly possible if it is hanging in a prominent place in a family home, then these calendars could impact up to 50,000 lives!  The theme for the 2009 calendar is God’s Law and Justification by Faith.  The first ten months each deal with one of the Ten Commandments.  The last two months are drawn from Romans 3, and explain the purpose of God’s Law (to reveal our sinfulness and need for a Savior) and God’s provision of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ.  The calendars include artwork for each month illustrating the teaching of the verse.  Please pray that there would be no problems with the printing of these calendars.  Pray that God would use them greatly to share the Gospel with thousands of people throughout Guinea.

The year 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of Guinea’s independence from France.  In honor of the occasion, our colleague, Eugene, wrote the following that I wish to share:

“We prefer liberty in poverty to slavery in riches.” On these words the Republic of Guinea fought for and gained independence from colonial rule. During the next five decades true liberty has proven elusive as political, socioeconomic, and religious (spiritual) poverty gnawed at the very fabric of individual and national life.  Read the rest of this entry »

In August I ordered 100 small, wooden, hand carved spoons from Amadou; a basket, spoon, and shoe vendor in the market.  I gave him a prototype and told him he could choose a design to burn on the handles.  I intend to glue a magnet to the back of each spoon and give them to friends to hang on their fridges as a reminder to pray for us.

When we returned from our travels in late October, I went to the market to pick up the spoons.  Since David had never met Amadou, he came with me.  When we arrived at his booth, Amadou greeted us warmly, sliding over on his small bench so we could sit down.  He was very happy to meet David and pulled out two tiny spoons he had carved with our initials on them; ‘B’ for Bella and ‘D’ for Daawuuda, our Fulbe names.  They were really nice gifts that he took a lot of time making.  As is culturally appropriate, we thanked him profusely and began counting out our 100 wooden spoons from a bag he retrieved from far under his dark booth.

As I began to count, Amadou gave David another gift; a hand woven, grass trivet that read “Daouda love Bela.”  Again we exclaimed how kind it was of him to make such a wonderful gift for us.  It really was touching.  I continued counting.

Before David had time to hand me the trivet, Amadou pulled out the nicest pair of goat skin and tire- tread- soled shoes I have ever seen.  Amadou said the shoes were a gift for me.  David exclaimed, “Wow!  You’re giving us a lot of gifts today!”  Amadou explained that the last time he saw me; he looked at my feet and wanted to make me a pair of shoes.  I tried them on.  Of course, they were a perfect fit.

I was so very blessed by his no-strings-attached generosity.  Amadou generously gave out of his talents to show his appreciation of our friendship.  I wondered what we had to offer him.  I didn’t buy any gifts in either France or Ghana to share with friends like Amadou.  What could we give that would match his extravagance?  When I returned home, I wrapped a Pular New Testament.  I’ll give it to him the next time I go the market.  I’m sure Amadou’s gifts to us cost far more than our gift to him, but ours has an eternal value to which no pair of shoes can compare.

Our latest newsletter is available to read online.  Click on the “Newsletters” link to the right to access our fall newsletter.  If you do not know the password, click on the “Latest News” link above and scroll down to the “Request a Password” form.  We keep our newsletters confidential for the protection of other Christian workers.

We have been back in Guinea for about a week now.  It is good to be back home after all our travels.  Some things in Guinea haven’t changed.  This past Sunday, riots broke out in Conakry over fuel prices.  The government lowered the price of fuel by about twenty percent.  Since the price of a barrel of oil has fallen more than fifty percent on the international market, the people were not satisfied with the price reduction.  Some people blocked roads, burned tires in the streets, and threw rocks at passing cars.  The police and military began clamping down.  The demonstrations have continued for about three days.  News reports have listed at least three deaths resulting from the unrest.  Fortunately, we are about 400 kilometers away from the capital at our home in Labe.  All has been peaceful here.  Please pray for peace in all of Guinea.

For the past week, we have been in the country of Ghana.  We came to Ghana for a Pioneers Area Conference with other Pioneers missionaries from West Africa.  We have had a wonderful time here.

Ghana is a wonderful country.  The influence of Christianity is very strong here.  On Sunday, we went to a church that had a huge sanctuary.  In all their services, they probably have close to five thousand people who attend.  Ghanaian Christianity is very vibrant and lively.  The influence of Christianity is strong in the community.  As you drive down the road, you see that many businesses have Christian names.  For example, you might find “The Lord is My Shepherd Hair Salon,” “In Jesus Name Car Parts,”  “The Glory of the Lord Shop,”  and many more like that.  It is quite a refreshing change from our life in Guinea, a country that is nearly completely Muslim.

One day this week, we went on a trip to the city of Cape Coast.  There we visited a national park.  The park had a pathway built through the canopy of the trees high above the ground.  We walked on suspension bridges from treetop to treetop.  After that, we toured Cape Coast Castle.  It was an important center for the slave trade in Ghana.  It was sad to see the cells where slaves were kept as they were waiting to get on boats to North America.

During the conference, we met many other Pioneers missionaries.  We had teaching sessions dealing with various missions topics.  We learned a great deal.  We will be staying in Ghana a few more days and hope to see more of the capital, Accra.