Our journeys have taken us far and wide.  During the past couple weeks, we have been in Tennessee and Georgia.  We shared about our ministry at two churches in Tennessee.  The people there were so friendly.

First, we visited Tazewell.  It is a charming small town near the Cumberland Gap.  The leader of the women’s missionary group put us up in her guest cabin nearby.  Every day we were greeted by gorgeous mountain views.  We shared about our ministry at the church on Sunday morning, and I preached.  On Sunday evening, the church had its vacation Bible school commencement which we attended.  On Monday, a couple from the church took us out on Lake Norris in their pontoon boat.  It was a lot of fun.  On Monday evening, we shared with the women’s missionary group.

Next, we moved on to the Knoxville area.  It is a beautiful part of the country.  One day, a friend who was hosting us took us into the Smoky Mountains and Gatlinburg.  I found out that Smoky Mountain National Park is the most visited national park in the U.S.  On Sunday morning, we spoke to the junior high, high school, and college students about our ministry.  In the evening, we shared about our ministry with the whole church, and I preached.

All too soon, it was time to move on to the next stop on our journey.  We drove three hours south to Woodstock, Georgia.  We stayed with some dear friends there and had a meeting with a pastor.  We have also had the chance to visit with several friends in the area.  On Sunday, we will be sharing in a Sunday school class at a church here.  Then, we will be heading to north Georgia to visit some friends for a day, and next, it is on to Columbus, Ohio, to share at one final church before heading back to our home in northwest Ohio.

While traveling and sharing can take a lot of energy, it so neat to see the things that God does along the way.  We get to meet so many wonderful people.  We see so many beautiful sights.  We renew old friendships and strike up new ones.  God has truly blessed us every time we have ventured out to champion the needs of the Fulbe people, in particular their need for the Gospel.  We praise the Lord for all he has done.

One thing I love about working in the village is traipsing to the outhouse by the light of the moon in the middle of the night. (No, not really.) The first night we were in Loomal for the medical clinic, I went to the outhouse and accidentally walked through a swarm of cula (chew-la), also known as African driver ants. These ants travel in great swarms, up to 20 million strong. They like to swarm over something or someone and all begin biting simultaneously. They have been known to reduce a bird to bones in a few hours. Unfortunately, the cula did not start biting me until I was back in our room. They had gotten all the way up to my head, and were spread all over the floor. David helped pick them off me and I spent the next several hours feeling the lasting sting of their bites.

The second night in Loomal, I was determined to not have to go out in the middle of the night and thus reduce my chances of cula problems. You can imagine my surprise when I was jolted awake by David saying that cula were on him. That meant they were in the bed. David grabbed his flashlight and found that thousands of cula had entered the room at a ground level hole on the wall. They were swarming over our clothing on a chair in the corner. We were able to spray some bug spray around the legs of the bed to keep them from climbing up, and by morning, they were almost all gone. Our colleagues, who had their bedrolls on the ground did get bit a few times, but were able to shake the ants off and get away. The wife spent the remainder of the night in a folding chair and the husband slept on a long, wooden bench.

One morning last week David woke me up waving a donut recipe in my face yelling “donuts, donuts, donuts…”  It was inevitable.  I knew his five- day- donut- hankerin’ would get the best of him.

Of course, I have never made homemade donuts a day in my life (who does?); but I can read a recipe.  Since it was really cold in the house (high 60s), the donuts had to rise in the oven for three hours.  And then again for another hour after we rolled and cut them.  Since necessity is the mother of invention, we used a round, plastic container, and a soda bottle top to cut out each donut.  David made the glaze and topped each masterpiece as it came out of the pot.

Since it was 5 o’clock in the evening before they were all finished, we ate them for dinner.  We ate, and we ate, and we ate.  We ate so many donuts we thought we would barf.  They were incredible!  David said they tasted exactly like store bought donuts.  Definitely Hot, Steamy Goodness!

Earlier this week our colleague found a three foot long, spitting cobra in his yard.  In the cool of the morning the husband went out to turn on their generator.  When he opened the door to the generator house, he was greeted by the snake who was in the hooded position.  Our colleague quickly backed out of the shed and closed the door; knowing that if the snake spit into his eyes he could be blinded, and if it struck him, the venom would be deadly.

Thankfully, the missionary was able to kill the snake before anyone was injured; although not before we arrived to take some action photos.

Two days ago, while waiting outside a store, I struck up a conversation with the young man sitting on the bench next to me.  After some small talk, I asked him if he prayed.  That is a common question here to find out if someone takes their Islamic religion seriously.  It is also a good way to start a spiritual conversation.

The young man, “Sal,” responded in the affirmative.  He said that he does pray, and that he had studied the Qur’an.  I asked him if he could understand what he was saying when he prayed, since Muslims are required to pray in Arabic, and he said no.  He had simply memorized the words to the prayers and repeated them from memory.

He asked me if I pray.  Knowing he was wondering if I was a Muslim, I answered “yes, I do pray” but was quick to emphasize that I am a follower of Jesus, the Messiah.  To this he replied, “Does he live in your neighborhood?”

I answered, “No, I mean Jesus the Messiah who is written about in the Gospel.”  Our discussion continued on, and two days later I was able to bring him a copy of the Gospel to see for himself.

Pray for Sal, and the others that I met there that day, that they will come to know Jesus, the Messiah for themselves.

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.

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. (more…)

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.

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.