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.

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.

“And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19

Jesus Christ is the foundation of our life and ministry.  He is THE Firm Foundation.  Still, we do not take for granted the sacrifices and investments made by those missionaries who have gone before us.  In this picture, you can see the foundation of the hut that once belonged to Harry Watkins, the first missionary to this region of Guinea.  He served in Guinea beginning early in the first half of the twentieth century.  The legacy of his work lingers to this day.  His hut may be gone, but the foundation he laid remains, not merely in the ground, but in the hearts and lives of the descendants of those he impacted.

On our way to the capital two weeks ago to drop Georgia off at the airport, we stopped for a picnic lunch at the Bridal Falls. These are two of the few falls that can be directly accessed by SUV. We parked at the base, enjoyed the view and our sandwiches, and bought a few wooden sculptures from a local artisan.

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.