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.

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This past weekend we helped out at a medical clinic outreach in a village deep in the Guinean countryside.  During the course of the clinic, we saw 92 patients.  Diagnoses ranged from the minor (heartburn) to the serious (heart murmur) to the critical (kidney failure).  We saw people of all ages from infants to a man 90 years old.  Billlie helped out mainly by registering the patients as they arrived.  David helped by showing the Jesus Film to people as they waited and by selling Scripture and health literature at the registration table.  Every person who came through the clinic was prayed for and received an audio cassette of Scripture before they left.  In the next few blogs, we will be sharing some of our experiences from the clinic.

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.

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.