It rained last Sunday night. When it rains in Guinea, the water pounds on the tin roofs so hard you can’t hear a screamed conversation at the dinner table. The storm began with winds blowing so fiercely that David wondered aloud if the roof was tied on sufficiently. It was.

Ironically, I slept so soundly that night I didn’t know the storm raged for hours. Apparently our guard slept deeply too.

In the morning David found someone had climbed our fence, hacked off, and stolen a ten foot section of our garden hose. In the intensity of the storm, we didn’t hear anyone climbing the wall or walking on the stones in the courtyard.

But why would someone want our old garden hose? That was the hose we stretched across the road to the neighbor’s house every week to share our water. Without our water they have to draw water from a well ever day. That’s a lot of work for a huge family like theirs.

Georgia and I thought about it all day. Why would someone steal our garden hose? Georgia was the first to check a hunch and notice chipped paint around the small door to the gas tank on our SUV. With gas prices at $7 per gallon, stealing large quantities of gas from a vehicle like ours could feed a family for a long time.

Thankfully our gas tank door locks, and after what appeared to be two attempts, the thief discovered he wasn’t getting gas that easily. Unfortunately, a locked door wasn’t enough to deter him.

Next the thief crawled under the car and hacked off the fuel line to our gas tank. Then, using our garden hose he tried to drain the auxiliary gas tank into large, empty, oil containers to be sold later on the black market.

We praise God that our second, auxiliary gas tank was empty because we had just returned from a trip to Conakry. In the end, the thief only got away with our garden hose and little or no gasoline. The fuel line cost about $5 to fix. Now we’ll have to get a metal guard welded to the bottom of our car, covering the fuel line to deter future theft.

We praise God for His protection, that nothing else was stolen or damaged, and that no one was personally threatened.

It all started when a mouse got into Georgia’s house. It camped out behind the kitchen counter during the day and came out at night to leave a mess of shredded tin foil and bits of chewed paper and plastic.

Fearing a momma mouse had come indoors to have babies, we quickly set out an African mouse trap: a piece of peanut butter bread suspended over a bucket of water. In theory, when the mouse would walk out across the tightrope to eat the peanut butter bread, the bread would flip over sending the mouse into the death water below. It didn’t work.

Attempt number two involved food on huge pieces of cardboard surrounded by super strength glue. Georgia put one piece of cardboard on the counter and one under the fridge. After a few days, we began doubting the competence of the sticky traps.

While making dinner one night we decided to bring in nature’s best mouser~ our cat, Phoebe. She sniffed all over but never even saw the mouse. We continued making dinner while she walked around. In a flash she bolted to the fridge, and then began flying around the room with such vigor and speed, Georgia thought she must have caught the mouse. On her second lap around the kitchen, I realized she had stepped on the super strength sticky mouse trap that was under the fridge, and being at once shocked and scared, she tried running from it. By the time I caught her and freed the sticky cardboard, her fur was totally soaked. Phoebe was a matted mess of glue from head to toe.

Into the bathtub Phoebe went. First we slithered her with eye makeup remover to dissolve the majority of the glue. Then we gave her two more baths with shampoo to get the eye makeup remover off. She remained tacky (something akin to Velcro) for about a week until she licked the remaining glue from her fur.

Coincidentally, while making dinner, I dropped a piece of beef onto the mouse trap on the counter. The mouse came out about two in the morning for a snack, got caught on the trap and was put in the burn barrel.

A happy ending for Phoebe, a happy ending for Georgia.

After reading a helpful book on church planting, I was prompted to post a sign above my desk. The sign reads: How many Fulbe will hear the Gospel today? Every time I see it, it reminds me why we are here in Guinea. We are here to glorify God by sharing the Gospel with the Fulbe people. Everything we do must contribute to that goal. Reflecting on this question has given me a renewed zeal for language study and helped me gain a sharper focus in ministry here.

Maybe you should post a similar sign somewhere you will see it often. How many ______ will hear the Gospel today? You can fill in the blank with whoever you want, be it friends, co-workers, neighbors, fellow citizens, children, family members, etc. Then, make it your goal to help as many of these people as possible hear the Gospel today.